Enlightenment for the built environment.
With the idea of having a better quality environment, especially in the urban area, the design concept and strategy of creating a decent public space have been evolving for decades. It is just because nowadays, people who are considered an urban community have been leveraging their demands towards more complex and more varied activities. Those need to be followed by unprecedented spatial configuration and design to keep up with what they are pursuing in the city. Clarity is the critical indicator here, especially in designing spaces for people, creating better movement and raising the community’s awareness to communicate with the physical matters accompanying them while bustling in the city. Because we live in a 24 hours system, there are some constraints on the visual ability of humans to do their business as usual, and somehow, a clear vision needs to follow wherever they go, which is why one of the main ideas for spaces is to guide them. Nevertheless, coherences must be contextual with time and distance to keep functioning in the right places (Krier, 1979; Lynch, 1962).
It is common knowledge that lights solve every darkness without exceptions. From the beginning of human existence, they were assisted by gleams of moonlight to become fire as artificial lighting until discovering our present illuminating systems; they utilized it as their guides through the darkness. Therefore, it saves to say that lighting is one manufactured evolution that will present until the end, and so does the relationship with the built environment. Consequently, artificial illumination is guidance, in both literal and conceptual ways of human existence, that has a means towards sustainable development.
The race within humanity creates unprecedented demands that the pace of development could not meet the preferred outcomes. That is also being encountered with artificial lighting in the built environment. Humans who are prominent actors experiencing spaces come across lighting systems that are usually not desired or meet their liking, whether under or over lighting that creates uncomfortableness. Seeing some armatures that do not contextually match the surrounding environment is an issue that is quite common to emerge, for instance, in a particular district with historical values. Hence, the idea of creating a suitable lighting design, especially in public places, to tackle those matters in a sustainable yet future orientation.
Lighting design, particularly on an urban scale, is a contemporary concept established at the beginning of the 20th century. Kevin Lynch, one of the greatest urbanists, noticed that illuminating a city’s components after dark affects many perceptions in an urban space. Later, he decided that design should be straightforward in physical appearance and function to eradicate ambiguity during the nighttime to enhance the perception and improve people’s activities (Lynch, 1962). As a result, the urban Lighting Masterplan was applied alongside the improvement of Paris & Lyon City, located in France, in the 1970s. Following Lynch’s concept, Paris used comprehensive urban lighting systems to explain their sophisticated urban structures. In addition, they try to put in artificial lighting based on Right-of-Way (ROW) dimensions and structural land use to maximize public spaces’ quality and improve vistas to enhance landmarks. On the other hand, the City of Lyon used the lighting masterplan to emulate how the city ran in the past to achieve the status of UNESCO’s World Heritage Site. Alain Guilhot, an architect later known as a lighting design expert, was assigned to be the principal of projects in Paris and Lyon, popularising these works as urban lighting master planning.
Designers and experts were challenged to not only use a practical approach in terms of fitting the armature with the environment. In addition, the decorative yet amenity factor needs to accumulate in consideration to brighten the space comprehensively. Amenity lighting is artificial illumination that helps enhance the ambience of a particular situation, for instance, shopping corridors and old towns. At the same time, decorative lighting is commonly utilized in special features such as a fountain and ornamental vegetation. Of course, safety and security are the primary intentions for lighting to apply. Still, to achieve what people like, those considerations, decorative and amenity lighting play a significant role in creating favourable public lighting (Brandi & Geissmar, 2007).
The requirement of establishing an urban lighting masterplan is to look at the fundamental methodology of evidence based-design. For instance, there are three considerations in designing space related to establishing a master plan in a structured way:
- It begins with broad yet midway-deep research. Evidence-based research requires extensive collective evidence from primary investigations, including; field observations, on-location surveys, historic cultivations, and technical establishment related to the present lighting application.
- Secondary statements are prominent and related to the methodology and project preferences. Tons of references and project literature are required because of the dynamic yet flexibility of design.
- Lighting design depends on spatial context, especially on meso-micro scales.
As a designer, the fundamental ambiences are prominent by looking at sites and projects developed in the same fields.
The principal consideration of any project is a practical design that consists of trials in an expert workshop. However, of course, trial and error are unavoidable and, in this case, require lots of simulation and creative tasks. To create a suitable lighting design and simulation, we must compare several scenarios based on technical and design considerations, later matched with precedents and technical guidelines or the so-called fragmental process. Several tools All strategies create a circular process called Evidence-Based Lighting Design (EBLD) (Davoudian, 2019).
From this passage, I am trying to deliver how complex lighting design is supposed to be. A designer should have a sense of design and the relationship between people and places, especially at night, to create a rational lighting concept. You have read only one matter about the principle of lighting in a built environment, and other issues are waiting outside the line, such as efficiency and sustainability. So consider it an intervention for the design process; because “LIGHTING IS FUNDAMENTAL”.
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Brandi, U., & Geissmar, C. (2007). Light for Cities: Lighting Design for Urban Spaces, A Handbook. Basel: Birkhäuser.
Krier, R. (1979). Urban Spaces (1st ed.). London: Academy Edition.
Lynch, K. (1962). The Image of The City. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Davoudian, N. (Ed.). (2019). Urban Lighting for People: Evidence-Based Lighting Design for The Built Environment. RIBA Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429345678
